The
You don’t know who your friends are in the dark.
It’s hard to say who will betray you next
or if their kiss means any love at all.
Shadows rehearse slow dances on the wall.
In candlelight, a traitor to yourself,
there’s no way to distinguish true from false.
The city at your back is volatile
and rests upon the interpretation
of smiles, glances and codes you need to crack.
Outside the river slides by, untidy
with bleak secrets, as surreptitious as
a snake winding itself through undergrowth.
This must be what you mean by chivalry,
or do you just help out when they are short
with some judicious back-stabbing and throats
slit in murky alleyways on account
of recusancy or a disputed
reckoning. And now I feel your callous
hands upon my skin. I can’t say how long
we have together, how long it might last
or whether it will be a fond farewell.